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Friday, March 16, 2012

Cheap garage tips: Hose reel from dub wheel


Put those big 22-inch rims to work. What to do with those embarrassing rims you thought were so cool in 2008? Tastes change and rims get bent. Chrome spinners no longer spin. You can no longer afford the 22-inch-tires or, worst of all, your too ashamed to ride around with “look-at-me, I spent more on my dub rims than my car.” You’ve got the big wheel blues? Instead of hauling them to the recycling yard, make a flashy water hose reel that will stand up to the elements.
  
Heavy duty, functional
This discarded 22-inch, chrome wheel has new life as a hose reel. The rim’s wide width and low profile lip height allow the hose to slip off the wheel easily. That makes for quick work when you’ve got to hose off the shop floor. As a bonus, this wheel won’t become brittle and break like a weathered, plastic hose reel.
  
How to build dub wheel hose reel
Weld a sturdy bracket that you can make from pieces of flat, scrap steel. Be sure to measure the backspacing to get the proper fit on your wall. Weld two wheel studs, facing out from the wall it will mount to, onto the bracket. Bolt bracket to your shop’s wall then mount the giant rim using lug nuts onto the bracket. This rim had a universal bolt pattern with 10 lug holes, so lining up the two welded wheel studs was easy. Depending on your neighborhood, you may want to use locking lug nuts. You could also build it to allow the rim to spin on a center hub as well.

Plenty of room inside the wide wheel to park scrub brushes and soap.

Send us your tips
Save time and money doing things the junkyardlife way - on the cheap. You can’t afford to buy every tool or part that you need, so what can you do? You learn to make use of the things you have at your disposal and create an efficient wrenching area that saves money while your doing it. 
  More thrifty garage tips are on the way but if you want to share your ideas, send me an email at junkyardbull@gmail.com


– Jody Potter, junkyardlife.com

1 comment:

Chris said...

I use my extra rims for extension cords.